Blizzard Appeal Valve’s Right To Register The Dota 2 Trademark

Blizzard has set forward an appeal to US Patent and Trademark Office Trial and Appeal Board which challenges Valve’s right to use the word “DOTA”.

“Blizzard seeks to prevent registration by its competitor Valve Corporation of a trademark, DOTA, that for more than seven years has been used exclusively by Blizzard and its fan community, under license from Blizzard,” said the creators of Warcraft III in their appeal.

“By virtue of that use, the DOTA mark has become firmly associated in the mind of consumers with Blizzard, including to signify a highly popular scenario or variant of one of Blizzard’s best-selling computer games, Warcraft III. Over the past seven years, the mark DOTA has been used exclusively in connection with Blizzard and its products, namely Warcraft III.”

For many years it seemed as if Blizzard didn’t care much about DOTA and what it entailed. Until, of course, Valve took a step and hired IceFrog for Dota 2. To counter this action, Blizzard has argued that Valve should have no right to the DOTA name or trademark.

In the document, Blizzard noted that Valve “has never used the mark DOTA in connection with any product or service that currently is available to the public” and that “by attempting to register the mark DOTA, Valve seeks to appropriate the more than seven years of goodwill that Blizzard has developed”. Blizzard then went on to say that Valve is taking “a name that has come to signify the product of years of time and energy expended by Blizzard and by fans of Warcraft III”.

However, it feels as if Blizzard didn’t spend much time and energy on the project. Well, not as much as the original founders, one of which includes IceFrog who is at Valve. That aside though, it is claimed that in 2008 the rights to DotA Mods and DotA-Allstars was assigned to “DotA-Allstars, LLC.”, a company which was then purchased by Riot Games, Inc. in 2010. Then, following this Blizzard claims that in 2011 Riot Games sold DotA-Allstars, LLC to Blizzard. Due to this, Blizzard now claims to possess the DOTA mark and any goodwill it might include.

Prior to Blizzard acquiring DotA-Allstars, LLC, Valve filed for the trademark on DOTA. Therefore, Blizzard only acquired rights to DotA-Allstars and the possible chance to the name a year after Valve owned the trademark for DOTA.

Despite this however, Blizzard has stated that “Valve has no right to the registration it seeks,”

“If such registration is issued, it not only will damage Blizzard, but also the legions of Blizzard fans that have worked for years with Blizzard and its products, including by causing consumers to falsely believe that Valve’s products are affiliated, sponsored or endorsed by Blizzard and are related or connected to Warcraft III.”

Most players understand that Warcraft III is only a portal for DOTA. And they understand the jump to Valve and what it entails. After all, DOTA is more of a specialised game with a wide player-base who is very up to date with the happenings in that very industry.

DOTA stands for Defence of the Ancients, whereas the “DOTA” in DOTA 2 does not stand for that. There was no new meaning put forward for DOTA 2, therefore it’s just DOTA 2.

Valve has responded to Blizzard regarding the appeal. They have denied most accusations against them. Read the two notices side-by-side as Valve replies directly paragraph to paragraph.

Blizzard should instead set forward carving in stone the release date of Diablo 3 already..:(

http://egamer.co.za Dean Oberholzer

Yeah, that’s more valuable to everyone.

Anonymous

Then again i wont even believe it until i hold a copy in my hand and even then i wont be happy just in case a Blizzard employee jumps out of hiding and takes my copy away and screams gotcha!!..I will truly be happy when im playing it..

Anonymous

So basically Blizzard’s being that kid that doesn’t really care about a toy till someone else wants to play with it? Fantastic.

Anonymous

Its just a case of Blizzard telling Valve STFU..Any means were you can one up your opponent you will use it, thats why its called competition unfortunately..

Anonymous

Well said and I think Blizzard is being petulant, just trying to hit back at Valve since there’s nothing they can really do about it.

Anonymous

Well said and I think Blizzard is being petulant, just trying to hit back at Valve since there’s nothing they can really do about it.

http://twitter.com/Weeman360 Pienaar Anker

Does that mean DOTA 2 won’t be release before 2013?

http://egamer.co.za Dean Oberholzer

Nah. Valve owns the Trademark, so they can use it. Blizzard is just appealing the use of it. If they win then the next game will have to change.

NeoN

This makes me sad. :/ I understand where Blizzard are coming from, with the “7 years of goodwill”, but since it’s only a mod using their engine, it doesn’t hold the same weight.

I for one, will be moving over to Valve’s DotA 2 cause it’ll be following IceFrog and his DotA concepts/ideas – rather than playing one of those other DotA clones (HoN, LOL, SC2 DotA).

Toxxyc

I actually don’t understand where Blizzard comes from. I’m willing to bet most copies of WC3 and TFT was sold exclusively for use with DotA. It’s why I bought it. It’s why most of my friends bought it. And yet Blizzard never truly supported DotA. It was a little mod (which they didn’t even make) for their game which was built, designed and sustained by feedback from it’s fans, the same fans who couldn’t give a damn about the game’s campaign.

Hell, since buying the game I’ve only installed it once, only to see that the updates and mods needed to get DotA to run properly was way too much trouble to go through, so I uninstalled and continued to use the pirate copy I had before.

Blizzard needs to grow up. Let them focus on Diablo 3 and whatever else they want, because their apparent DotA (or DOTA or dota or Dota or whatever they want to call it) sequel is just a butt hurt attempt to steal Valve’s thunder. And it looks like a mockery. Now they try to take the DOTA name (which has nothing to do with Defence of the Ancients that they never even gave a damn about) from Valve, more than two years after DOTA 2 was announced (I think it’s almost two and a half years now, right?) as they see that Valve’s game has a spot more support because of actual, epic goodness instead of the mocked attempt they tried to smear off as a valued DotA sequel/update/upgrade/standalone game.

Blizzard, go jack off in a corner and leave Valve to release the game all the DotA fans are waiting for, instead of pissing them off more and they end up hating you so bad that they’ll bash you harder than you deserve for the failed PC port Diablo 3 is going to be.

/rage

Anonymous

Bliz can fuckoff and die, they had years to respond to dota but never did, it never had anything todo with them. Their fault